UEA to investigate impact of AI on children as part of £3 million project
By: Communications
Researchers at the University of East Anglia will investigate how AI influences children’s cognitive, social and emotional development as part of work commissioned by the Department for Education.
They will provide the most comprehensive picture to date of how children interact with increasingly intelligent digital systems.
The move comes amid growing concern about the technology’s rapid integration into everyday life.
The work will feed into a new educational neuroscience policy research centre - led by UCL, co-directed with Birkbeck, and with collaborators including UEA, the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford.
Prof John Spencer, from UEA’s School of Psychology, said: “Children today are growing up alongside AI in ways no previous generation has.
“AI powered tools - from virtual tutors and chatbots to content recommendation algorithms - are moving at a fast pace, and are already deeply embedded in children’s environments, both at school and at home.
“While these technologies offer new opportunities for personalised learning and creativity, their long-term developmental impact remains poorly understood.
“Parents and educators are grappling with fundamental questions about the role AI should play in learning and development.
“We urgently need robust, evidence-based insights into how AI shapes children’s attention, learning, social skills, and even identity formation.”
Prof Spencer’s previous research has shown how talking to toddlers boosts early brain development and that children’s self-regulatory skills were set back years by the Covid pandemic.
Now, his attention will be turned to how AI affects memory and critical thinking, social interaction, communication, and emotional wellbeing.
“I am excited to be involved with carefully evaluating the beneficial and potentially detrimental impacts of AI on education,” he said.
Strengthening the role of educational neuroscience
Designed to inform policymakers with robust evidence, the Educational Neuroscience Policy Research Centre (ENPRC) will combine expertise from nine universities, with specialisms ranging from educational neuroscience and cognitive psychology, to applied classroom practice, genetics, and AI.
Rather than ad hoc research commissioning, the DfE wanted a single centre to run a two year programme that builds a strategic evidence base, helping to address key themes that relate to learning from early years through to higher education.
Educational neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field that sits at the intersection of brain science, psychology, and education. Its goal is to understand how the brain learns, and then use that knowledge to improve teaching methods, learning environments, and educational outcomes.
The new centre will consolidate existing knowledge to inform policy, and spend a third of its time providing rapid-response analysis for emerging priorities, providing evidence on key topics within a short timeframe.
The consortium members will interrogate questions relevant to learning and education today, from how cognitive and biological factors may enable us to identify children with special educational needs early on, to the impact of AI-enhanced technology in home and school learning environments.
Using research to inform education policy
“This is an opportunity to bring together experts within the field, to synthesise the knowledge we’ve got and bring it out, with a direct route to policy and practice,” Prof Van Herwegen of UCL said.
“It’s exciting that policymakers are interested in research evidence. It’s clear to see in terms of the questions they ask. They want to come together with academics to find solutions together.”
Research centres - a new approach
The new educational neuroscience research centre is being launched as part of a wider government focus on the future of education.
Early Education Minister Olivia Bailey said: “Decisions should of course be rooted in what the evidence tells us actually works for children and young people.
“These new centres will help us do exactly that – bringing together some of the best minds in the country to make sure our reforms on SEND, early years, and children’s mental health are built on solid foundations, and that we understand the long-term value of the choices we make.”
Department for Education Chief Scientific Advisor Michael Thomas said: “To make the best decisions for children and young people, we need a clear understanding of how they learn, and rigorous evidence of what works.
“These centres will give us both – bringing together the best of neuroscience and economics across two focused centres to put a stronger evidence base at the heart of education policy.”
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